Logan's Run First Watch

[Greg Cox]

As I recall, there's basically a two-page prologue which wastes no time bringing the book continuity into line with the ending of the movie.

"And then Sanctuary (which was a real place in the book) was destroyed and Logan and Jessica had to return to the City, and then everything blew up and here we are . . . . "

 

[Reverend]

Just so happened to have just caught the movie for the first time in what's probably at least a decade.
For me, it's main significance is to serve to highlight just how massive a technological leap forwards 'Star Wars' was for VFX. What a difference a year and a few extra million dollars makes!

As for the movie itself...it's a bit of an odd duck. It's far from the worst 70's sci-fi movie I've ever seen, but it's still 100% potential MST3K material. Not just the very dated 70's futurist aesthetics, the admittedly ambitions model work that still falls shot of being convincing, the unmemorable synth score, and the uneven acting.

The story itself is riddled with plot-holes, loose ends and very rushed storytelling. The pacing is weird, even for a chase movie and the end is so abrupt and open ended one can't help but wonder if all these newly "freed" people are about to die of starvation inside of a week. Indeed, I get the distinct impression that this would not have been how the book ends. The whole third act reeks of Hollywood attempting to impose so kind of cathartic spectacle at the end of a story that wasn't designed to go that way.
Which is all unfortunate since I feel like the bones of something truly exceptional for it's time was there, it just needed a few more drafts to tighten up the script. That or the script was tight and several rather vital lines of dialogue were cut in editing.

I mean if there's no sanctuary, then why is there an elaborate underground railroad type set-up complete with a recorded message and secret keys? Why was the city computer so utterly convinced of it's existence, to such a degree that proof to the contrary was enough for overload it and blow up half the city in the process? What the hell is "carousel" and "renewal" anyway? I mean sure, one can make educated guesses but for something that's supposed to be so core to the motivation of runners, they're very poorly explained concepts.

Several times it's remarked just how unfathomable the notion of running is for most and yet there's seems to be Sandmen *everywhere* in public. They don't appear to have any other function than chasing down runners and they seem to be quite busy most of the time. This feels like a contradiction that's never really addressed.

And what the hell is up with just dumping unruly children in Cathedral? Again, I suspect there's some cut dialogue the explains it, but I can only judge the movie by it's final cut. As presented, it seems like a weird choice for a society so fixated on rigid population control to have a 'Lord of the Flies' district full of murderous children.

Indeed, just thinking all this back through has left me with the distinct impression that there must have been a fair amount trimmed out in the edit. Aside from the plot-holes, I noticed a few rather abrupt edits and continuity issues. The most prominent being Jessica's hair suddenly being soaked through between shots in the fish farm, and a weird cut when they get into the furs before Box shows up. The latter is suspect may have something to do with avoiding male nudity since York's trousers magically disappear in the space of a cut, which kind of takes the piss considering the movie isn't so shy about it's female cast members disrobing.

 

[Christopher]

Just so happened to have just caught the movie for the first time in what's probably at least a decade.
For me, it's main significance is to serve to highlight just how massive a technological leap forwards 'Star Wars' was for VFX. What a difference a year and a few extra million dollars makes!

Surprisingly, Logan's Run actually got a Special Achievement Oscar for its VFX (though that wasn't a competitive category that year, and it shared the honor with DeLaurentiis's King Kong).

As for the movie itself...it's a bit of an odd duck. It's far from the worst 70's sci-fi movie I've ever seen, but it's still 100% potential MST3K material. Not just the very dated 70's futurist aesthetics, the admittedly ambitions model work that still falls shot of being convincing, the unmemorable synth score, and the uneven acting.

Good point about the ambitious model work. It looks like L.B. Abbott was in charge of the model work, and he was a veteran in the field with decades of experience going back to The Day the Earth Stood Still, and including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Fantastic Voyage, the whole Planet of the Apes series (TV included), and the Irwin Allen TV series. So he knew his way around a miniature. I'm not really sure why the model work fell short on Logan, but I think I once read that it was a matter of time or budget or some circumstance that kept them from doing as good a job as they could have.

 

[Reverend]

Good point about the ambitious model work. It looks like L.B. Abbott was in charge of the model work, and he was a veteran in the field with decades of experience going back to The Day the Earth Stood Still, and including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Fantastic Voyage, the whole Planet of the Apes series (TV included), and the Irwin Allen TV series. So he knew his way around a miniature. I'm not really sure why the model work fell short on Logan, but I think I once read that it was a matter of time or budget or some circumstance that kept them from doing as good a job as they could have.

I don't think it was a matter of time of budget so much as the techniques in use being pushed beyond their capacity to pull off the desired effect. As big as the miniature was in terms of square-footage, the scale was too small for how close they allowed the camera to get. It breaks the illusion and you can't NOT see it as just a really elaborate toy train set.
Even 'Star Wars' and 'Empire' didn't even attempt to create a shot like that for Mos Eisley or Cloud City, simply because the technology just wasn't there yet. It's not until 'Blade Runner' that we see something like it done effectively and even then, it's mostly down with lighting tricks, forced perspective shots and lots and lots of fog machines.

They probably would have been better off with the moving model parts shot through a matte painting on glass (a technique about as old as film itself.) The drawback there is that the camera has to be locked off and it seems the director wanted to sell the feeling of motion through a three dimensional space that even a matte parallax effect can't convey.

 

[Greg Cox]

All of this is why I've long thought LOGAN'S RUN is an ideal candidate for a remake. The original has some neat concepts and visuals, and is fondly remembered by a generation of fans, but it hasn't aged well and was never an untouchable masterpiece that can never be surpassed. There's room for improvement here, and you wouldn't exactly be treading on sacred ground by doing an updated take on the material.

 

[Reverend]

All of this is why I've long thought LOGAN'S RUN is an ideal candidate for a remake. The original has some neat concepts and visuals, and is fondly remembered by a generation of fans, but it hasn't aged well and was never an untouchable masterpiece that can never be surpassed. There's room for improvement here, and you wouldn't exactly be treading on sacred ground by doing an updated take on the material.

I don't disagree, but I think there's a fundamental issue with the story's message.
I mean, what was the point of it all? For 'THX-1138' it was about the dehumanising effect of a souless bureaucracy. For 'Brave New World' it was more about questions on what it means to be happy and human and the role of pain and suffering in the same.
'Logan's Run' seems to borrow heavily from these and others, but it's mostly surface level only and never really lands on any real point beyond "stick it to the man!"

Furthermore, who is Logan really? Was it just random chance that landed him with that assignment? Or was it his persistent (if mostly idle) questioning of the status quo? At what point did he decide that he really was a runner after all and where did his sudden onset of social conscience come from that prompted him to go back and stage a one man cultural revolution. For a title character that's in almost every scene and TONS of dialogue, we never really know what's going on in his head or what's really motivating him.

I suspect the combination of this lack of a solid hook and fully formed protagonist is at least partly why there's yet to be a remake. I can imagine there's a small stack of attempted drafts over the years with various takes on the subject matter, but nothing's really connected to a degree to overcome the dated, silly image the original movie has.

These days, remakes mostly happen to bank on nostalgia rather than to polish up an old gem, so the prospect of remaking a relatively obscure IP probably isn't all that appealing to the money people.
OK, not "obscure" exactly, but it's not a "classic" either. It's in a weird nostalgic no man's land in that it's almost *too* well remembered, but for the wrong reasons.

There's also what I call the "John Carter Effect". Where the later imitators are more well known than the inspiration, so any attempt at adapting it is going to look derivative because others have done this better already. To give an example off the top of my head; 'Equilibrium' was pretty much 'Logan's Run' meets 'Fahrenheit 451' by way of 'The Matrix'.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

At what point did he decided that he really was a runner after all and where did his sudden onset of social conscience come from that prompted him to go back and stage a one man cultural revolution.

In the film, Logan's tipping point was the scene where the Runner headquarters is raided by the Sandmen. Logan sees the casual brutality that the Sandmen perpetrate against the Runners (who are regularly shot in the back when attempting to flee or surrender); at that point, he makes the final decision to rebel.

 

[feek61]

FWIW, Both the movie and series in on Netflix

 

[Reverend]

In the film, Logan's tipping point was the scene where the Runner headquarters is raided by the Sandmen. Logan sees the casual brutality that the Sandmen perpetrate against the Runners (who are regularly shot in the back when attempting to flee or surrender); at that point, he makes the final decision to rebel.

Like I said, we can logic it out all we like, but his motivations and internal thoughts are not very well presented.
He consciously brought down that raid thinking that it was sanctuary, with potential over 1000 unaccounted for people to be terminated. He knew full well pushing that button would result in a slaughter, but he wanted his 4 years back.
Plus, he's killed before, even taking joy in it. Hell, he downright played with Jessica's friend before driving him to suicide, and showed zero remorse for his behaviour even after his turn.

The way the movie makes it look, the only reason he's suddenly not OK with the mass slaughter is that a girl he likes is liable to get caught in the crossfire, and for this he instantly turns to murdering his former co-workers. And it's not like this comes off as compassion on his part either so much as a selfish want for Jessica to be his. The movie even re-enforces this later on by "rewarding" him with her consent to have sex.

The latter I think is another case of Hollywood script writing intruding upon the source material because the notion of sex as a reward in a society where sex is never more than the turn of a dial away is nonsensical. It's a two-way street too since Jessica's sudden infatuation with the man who murdered her friend and is clearly using her for her connections is never really looked into either.
I mean are we supposed to think she fell in love with him because he chose not to rape her that first time at his place? Because that's messed up.

 

[Greg Cox]

There's also what I call the "John Carter Effect". Where the later imitators are more well known than the inspiration, so any attempt at adapting it is going to look derivative because others have done this better already. To give an example off the top of my head; 'Equilibrium' was pretty much 'Logan's Run' meets 'Fahrenheit 451' by way of 'The Matrix'.

Indeed, the challenge will be differentiating a new Logan's Run from all the other YA-friendly dystopias out there: Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, etc.

My instinct would be to play up the hedonistic youth angle. It's an MTV, YOLO, "Real World" utopia where it's assumed there's no point in living past your partying days. "Hope I die before I get old," that kind of thing. The social compact is you get a youth full of sex and drugs and no responsibility, then step aside to let the next wave of young people have their fun, because who wants to get old and boring anyway?

Except for the Runners, crazy rebels who want to live a long and fulfilling life . . . . .

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure a Logan's Run remake would fit the tenor of the times. The original novel was pretty much a conservative-leaning cautionary tale about the dystopia that would result if the '60s youth-activist movements won and took over the world, devaluing age and wisdom to the point of genocide against the old and leaving a shallow, ignorant, hedonistic culture as a result. So I don't think that message would go over well with young audiences today. It's been pointed out before that the current generation of young activists have grown up with YA series like The Hunger Games where young heroes stand up against their dystopias and fight back. So I don't think Logan, which takes the opposite stance on the value of youth, would be well-received by that generation.

FWIW, Both the movie and series in on Netflix

I checked, and I could only find the movie.

 

[Reverend]

Indeed, the challenge will be differentiating a new Logan's Run from all the other YA-friendly dystopias out there: Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, etc.

My instinct would be to play up the hedonistic youth angle. It's an MTV, YOLO, "Real World" utopia where it's assumed there's no point in living past your partying days. "Hope I die before I get old," that kind of thing. The social compact is you get a youth full of sex and drugs and no responsibility, then step aside to let the next wave of young people have their fun, because who wants to get old and boring anyway?

Except for the Runners, crazy rebels who want to live a long and fulfilling life . . . . .

The trouble with that approach is that is can look like it's demonising the target audience. Generally speaking, the current crop of YA franchises seem to be mostly built around the notion of youth fighting back against an establishment that's controlling them for their own ends.
You'd probably have to re-interpret the premise by providing a more concrete antagonist to differentiate the "YOLO" kids from the system that keeps them that way, something 'Logan's Run' always lacked.

I'd say have a reveal that the "city computer" being a front for a ruling elite of old people who have long since cracked the secret to immortality. Perhaps keeping the population down so they can keep the party rolling forever, but at the cost of anyone else having any say in it ever (hence the bread and circuses distractions)...but that might be a little too 'Wizard of Oz' meets 'Peter Pan'.

Another possible direction to go is to actually make it a dilemma whether or not to continue the status quo, or tear the whole thing down and start over. I mean the people of the city were basically half-way to being Eloi, so it wouldn't be hard to pitch the idea that they've become so dependent on technology they can't survive in the outside world anymore, even if it's recovered from all the pollution/war/radioactive-mutant-GMO-Triffids/whatever drover humanity into he domes in the first place.
Maybe the idea could be floated that the planet is better off without humanity tearing up the joint, while for it's part, humanity is finally off a course of inevitable self-destruction. Then you're left with the question of "what does it really mean to be human", which is usually at the core of sci-fi anyway.

 

[The Realist]

Reverend, some of the questions you've posed can be answered by reference to the YouTube reconstructions of deleted scenes I posted about uptopic. The odd cut you mention in the ice cavern may be the result of editing around the deleted "nude sculpture" footage, and that extended scene (as I noted) also contains dialogue that helps clarify Logan's change of heart. There's also this brief bit that explains Jessica's sudden soaking in the fish farm:

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[Reverend]

Reverend, some of the questions you've posed can be answered by reference to the YouTube reconstructions of deleted scenes I posted about uptopic. The odd cut you mention in the ice cavern may be the result of editing around the deleted "nude sculpture" footage, and that extended scene (as I noted) also contains dialogue that helps clarify Logan's change of heart. There's also this brief bit that explains Jessica's sudden soaking in the fish farm:

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So pretty much as a I suspected.

Of course none of this excuses anything as what's in the final cut is ultimately what matters. If the filmakers consciously chose to omit character motivation, that's hardly a point in their favour. That it also Introduces some somewhat blatant continuity issues only compounds matters and the film's coherence suffers as a whole.

Out of curiosity is there a version of the ending that isn't a weird rushed mess? Or was it always meant to be that way?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

My proposal: After you hit 30, you're forced to work 40 hours a week for the next 50 years, the horror!

 

[The Realist]

Out of curiosity is there a version of the ending that isn't a weird rushed mess? Or was it always meant to be that way?

None of the deleted/extended scenes affect the ending. Here's a link to the complete YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkjrUu7zufJeZTJRcJgtdrm9jdK9lzeE7

 

[Gavin70]

But then, Clarke was never one for continuity between his books in any case.

And then 2061 and then 3001... I think there were all in adjacent continuities.

I recall Clarke saying later in his life that they were all slightly alternate continuities. Although I suspect it was more a case of him focusing on telling the story of each book without being bogged down by the prequels and the comment about alternate continuities was more of an escape clause than any sort of original plan.

 

[The Realist]

Another thought: Though there's a case to be made that some elements of the film are inadequately explained (Carrousel, Cathedral), I also remember feeling as a young fan that it actually made the film more intriguing that the specifics of things like Renewal and the "Muscle" drug were not fully clarified. It made the movie more mysterious and immersive somehow, like you were glimpsing a future world without complete context and had to connect the dots to comprehend its implications. Perhaps not the filmmakers' intent, but it's another way to look at it (much like Star Wars a year later would cleverly suggest a world beyond its immediate narrative with unexplained references to things like the "Clone Wars").

 

[Gavin70]

My proposal: After you hit 30, you're forced to work 40 hours a week for the next 50 years, the horror!

Your proposal sounds better than our current reality. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to cut back to 40 hours a week?

 

[Christopher]

I recall Clarke saying later in his life that they were all slightly alternate continuities. Although I suspect it was more a case of him focusing on telling the story of each book without being bogged down by the prequels and the comment about alternate continuities was more of an escape clause than any sort of original plan.

My point is, before 2010, Clarke never wrote a sequel. Other writers did whole series of books or set many or most of their books in a single common universe; some, like Asimov and Niven, started out doing separate stories that they later combined into a single universe. But one thing that set Clarke's body of works apart was that he didn't do that. Every novel, every story, was a universe unto itself. The only ongoing series he did was Tales from the White Hart, but that was a series of tall tales about probably-imaginary science and technology told in a bar by the series's main recurring character, so even that was only loosely a single reality.

Clarke's lack of interest in revisiting old story settings is probably why it took 14 years to give into the pressure to do a 2001 sequel -- and given his usual practices, it's no surprise to me that he didn't make any effort to be consistent with the original novel and instead did a sequel to the movie. Nor is it a surprise that his other sequels in that series didn't really fit together. It wouldn't have been in character for him if they had.